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Kay Lake
Referenced in * The Black Dahlia * Perfidia *This Storm Appearance Kay has auburn hair and dark eyes. She is beautiful but not in classical way. Perfidia Kay's background is provided and she goes into detail on Lee Blanchard and makes mention of how he hopes to get involved with Dudley Smith. She says she's going to enlist in the war effort. Kay writes about how Lee went to New York a month prior (and as we learn from earlier chapters killed a mobster who was going to be a witness against Ben Siegel). She also mentions her fascination with Bucky and that's why she sketches him and how Lee fawns over Dudley Smith. Kay, at her new job at the listening post, hears it confirmed: Lee killed Abe Reles for Ben Siegel. Kay, Elmer, and Brenda discuss the tapes and when she hears Pearl Harbor was attacked she rushes to enlist. When a recruiter tells her she can't join because she's on a subversive list. When she's attacked Scotty Bennett comes to her rescue and afterwards they go out for lunch. He tells her he was going to join the Marines because he was to young for the LAPD. Kay and Scotty go and see Bucky fight at the Olympic. While there she notices Hideo and afterwards her and Scotty go home and have sex. The next morning while she's saying good-bye she sees Bill across the street. Kay goes to a Paul Robeson concert where Claire is and makes a scene, which ends up sending her to prison. After Bill gets her out Sid Hudgens tells her Bucky might need to snitch to get on the LAPD. While at City Hall, Kay sees Hideo, introduces herself, and offers to help him tear out the taps. Going from room to room they take them all out and when she asks him to out for a drink he accepts. While there however, a drunken Lee interrupts them and gets a slap from Kay. Kay watches a movie in preparation for Claire and calls Hideo. Kay goes to see Saul Lesnick and sees Claire on the way out, securing an invite to her party. When leaving she sees Preston Exley speaking to another tall man. Kay goes to Claire's party and going through her stuff finds a left-wing tract and hypodermic syringe. While watching a movie Chaz Minear made she gets close to Claire and tells him she has a Japanese friend and she wants her to make a movie about the roundups. Kay and Bill meet to discuss the party and he says he'll give her a camera for next time and if she's going to make a movie or some such go for broke. Kay reads the tract she stole and finds out it outlines Claire's hate for Bill. Scotty tries to find a scapegoat, meanwhile Claire her grand plan to undermine Bill. Scotty and Lee get in a fight. Kay follow Claire to her church and then sees her take a photo of a man near a fish market and not of Bill. Going to a restaurant to wait for Scotty she hears Jim Davis, who works secuirity at the aircraft plants talk of Fifth Column sabotage. Later Hideo and her go to her and her pass is rebuffed. While cleaning Lee's wounds from the riots in Chinatown Kay thinks about how important Hideo is to making her film with or for Claire. Kay wonders why Dr. Lesnick hasn't called why drawing Scotty. Kay waits for Hideo at Claire's party. When Hideo arrives she makes a show of welcoming him them goes upstairs to take pictures as Bill instructed, finding drugs from Lesnick, black hair dye and a tract against Carl Hull. When she returns downstairs her and Claire discuss the movie and after the party she has a fight with Bill. Kay makes her speech in Pershing Square where Fred Hilitz also is and while making it Hideo is attacked until he is saved by Bill, Scotty, and Ed. Going to the hospital she sees goes to see Lee and Bill comes to see her. Kay and Claire do their movie at City Hall where she overhears a conversation between Dudley and Hideo. Looking at her photos she see Ed exchange money with a Hop Sing enforcer. She later learns the FBI will arrest them and take their film, hence Ward's warning. In prison, Kay is confronted by Ed and gives up nothing regarding the film she burned although she thinks about how she hid film in her purse. Later she gets in a fight with Dot and sends her to the hospital. Kay wakes up in the hospital in a haze with gauze on her face. When Bill comes in he gets a call to go to the rectory. When Scotty and Lee bring home from the hospital Scotty breaks things off and tells her he's joining the Marines but not before he tells him all he knows about Dudley. After Hideo calls her to tell her about Bowron, Kay ponders what Scotty told her and later meets with Elmer and Brenda on doing a set up on Bowron. Kay, Brenda, Elmer, and Bill meet to discuss the shakedown of Mayor Bowron. Kay, Brenda, Elmer, and Bill entrap Bowron when Kay poses as a prostitute. Kay thinks on her recent fallings out and losses. She thinks how she'll wear a St. Christopher medal until Scotty comes back or is confirmed dead. She thinks about she can't get a hold of Claire but when she called Loftis he said Claire had said Kay had artistry but no character or conviction which makes Kay uneasy. Not being able to contact Hideo despite her anger with him also makes her unhappy. Kay, in her despair over her betrayal, goes to see The Passion of Joan of Arc and when she rushes out upset she goes to a café and runs into Ward Littell where she asks about Dudley who keeps coming into her head. After getting the usual information she goes and buys a Japanese martyr's mask that's supposed to bring just vengeance and eased the ravaged soul-bearer to rest. Lee and Kay have a fight and she ponders what she'll do to make a difference. Kay goes to see Bette to ask her about Dudley, where, after a long monologue, learns that he killed Goro Shigeta. Kay burns the mask and clothes she wore when she attacked Dudley. This Storm Kay goes to Joan's funeral and notes the various people there. At her wake she thinks Elmer's hiding something despite him saying he's looking through mug shot book for Cal's killer. Later at her home, while playing piano, she receives the package of Joan's letters. Kay goes over Joan's diary and finds evidence of Dudley's criminal activity, her relationship with both Bill and Dudley, Hideo's wanting a clean klubhaus solve, and the gold quest. Meeting with Elmer she tells him about the case and its connection with Wayne Frank but omits the gold quest, leaving him angry. She also meets with Hideo and omits her analysis of the gold quest, hoping he'd do the right thing and not go tell Dudley. Later she mails the letters to Bill. Kay and Klemperer wait to pick up the Jewish emigres. When she asks him about it he says something about vague rumors of Nazis trying to exonerate themselves. He says Meyer Gelb mentioned it and she thinks about how his cell had been analyzed by Joan to be part of the Griffith Park fire. After they pick them up and are at the party Young Joan confronts her and brags about her involvement in smuggling out composers' work from Russia. When she talks to Andrea about Gelb she tells him he has no address and she also learns Jean Staley leaches off rich people in the arts and sends out items as if she's on the run. Finding out Jean lives on the premises she goes to her bungalow and finds all her postcards to Elmer. Going back she runs into Claire and has it out in a sense and later when she meets Bill she accuses him of causing Joan's death. Kay notes the previous party's inhabitants. Getting a call from Bill she learns Breuning and Carlisle are off the klubhaus case and Lee and Hideo are replacing them. Also he tells her he'll help get a clean solve. Later going to see Brenda she learns Elmer's been working on the klubhaus case and that he and Ed are working Annie to get dirt from Saul. Afterwards she sees a photo of Annie and Sid conspiring. Kay and Annie meet and discuss her recent exploits with Elmer. She tells Kay that Saul thought she had tried to kill Dudley but he didn't believe it. As far as Sid went he was trying to recruit her to be a honey trap for him. Going back to Saul, Kay wonders how the how strange it is that the four remaining members of the '31 Cell are still around each other and what Saul might now or have written down. Annie says Jean is still involved with Gelb in blackmailing the musician refugees and how she had been married to a firebug named Ralph Barr. At Klemperer's house Kay pumps him for information while recalling Annie got her the wax imprints of Saul's keys. Listening, Otto tells her that Jean stays at his place because she discovered he killed someone at a party in '39 and Saul and Ed helped cover it up. Trying to tie it all together she thinks how Gelb, Jean, and Saul all converge on the case. Later at her house Bill arrives and tells her Thad found out Kapek and Rice sold Jap guns to Greenshirts who were planning 211s. Also Dudley has gone full fascist. Finally they connsumate their relationship. Kay plans to give Bill and Claire scripts to confess to Fr. Hayes to entrap Dudley since he is vulnerable now. Upon her visits to Baja she thinks Hideo is faking and knows his closeness with Dudley but wants to break it up. She often visits Claire at Terry's clinic and confronts a doped up Jim Davis. Finally she notes how the internment has begun. Kay and Bill lie in their hotel room and thinking of how Dudley should've received the fake letter from Claire. Bill says how he's memorized Kay's script to read as a confession to Monsignor Hayes, a confession to put fear in him that his life was in danger from Dudley. Bill says no matter what they do however they can't indict him without bringing down the PD. He says the best case is to deprive him of the gold and hope Hideo's loyalty doesn't get in the way. Kay, Elmer, and Bill meet with Gene to discuss doing a raid on Bev's because it's a Fifth Column mail drop. Bill assures him they don't care to indict anyone but need to talk with Jamie. Elmer tells him Ed wanted to investigate but couldn't and is in fact under house arrest due to being Fifth Column. He said they could do it but had they couldn't talk to Jamie and had to take care of his men on the Sheriff's Department regarding the Fed probe. Later it turns out Saul hasn't reported his office's vandalism and they planned to use Annie to get info from him. Discussing the phone calls, Bill and Kay surmise it was Sid that Ed was trying to call at the cop hangouts and how they'd rattle Dudley by planting a fake Dudley story. Kay writes to Hideo telling him he has to help them and cease his loyalty to Dudley. She goes to see Claire and studies the letters she got from Beth and Young Joan and plans to write fake letters. Also Bill and Elmer brace Sid for his mailing list and she plans to write up a piece and send them to a number of prominent officials and Dudley. She also sees a struggling Jim Davis at Lux's clinic. Later, during the interrogation of Saul, after he gets done discussing his eugenic theories he says he knew of the mail drops and microdots goings-on He didn't know the past or present Kameraden bosses but did know Gelb and Jean despite not knowing the Fritz Ecklekamp angle. He goes on to say Ed was the Kameraden fixit man and that he knew nothing about the klubhaus. While leaving Kay spots him embracing a member of the Nazi Negro League who is also a pimp who suggests lunch at Kwan's since they go way back. While at Terry Lux's clinic Kay thinks about how Lee is bodyguarding Sid because of his fear of Dudley. Visiting Claire she sees Saul Lesnick, Lin Chung, and Jim Davis, but most importantly while her and Claire talk she reveals that she was the one that sent the letter about the confab minutes to Constanza since she had heard a conversation with Dudley. She goes on to tell Kay that Joan is now living in the Klemperer guest house and that the notion that Otto killed someone was false. She did reveal the man was a Japanese curio salesman who sold props to Orson for a smut film and he was only lightly beaten. She adds she was in the smut film. Going to Manzanar afterwards, he tells her the fake piece didn't shock him and when she tells him Otto had a run in with the Japanese sword man he said he thought the man was only tangential to the case and the gay man and woman in her thirties were the real important ones. She asks him to fake the confab minutes and in return he tells her he will but in return he wants to be the one to interrogate Frechette and Mimms also they could contravene Dudley's plans but not kill him. Kay notes how the Crash Squad has disbanded, Elmer was off somewhere, Buzz was staking out Gelb's location and had squeezed Frechette's location from the San Francisco bail bondsman. Also Hayes had gotten granted immunity. She tells Bill that Hideo wants the Frechette interview and that was part of their deal. He in turn says he'll need to tell Buzz not to kill Dudley. While in Lyman's backroom the teletype comes in and he reads it he sees news from Fourth Interceptor that says sabotage had occurred in the San Joaquin Valley. When they get there the local sheriff tells them eight people were killed in three locations and they'd caught a hinky Mexican named Mondo Diaz who, after being leaned on, admitted he was the leader of the group. Taking him to their local station Bill questions him while a crowd gathers to watch. During the interview Bill asks him why he's involved and he says the cabal is much left as right wing and that he saw Abascal give a pro-Nazi speech in Germany with Meyer Gelb who spoke about totalitarianism which annoyed the clique. He goes on to say that Abascal was predicting the current war and how totalitarian ideology is fluid. When Bill asks about the minutes from the confab he tells him it's a myth and the gold is who knows where. While at Terry Lux's clinic Kay sees Saul and Jim. She thinks about how, despite the Beverly Hills PD going with the Carbajal killed Gelb line, Elmer finds out Gelb was killed earlier and it was with a small bore weapon. Kay hears from Bill that Jack gave Dudley an ultimatum to come in a week otherwise he'd send men after him. Going to Kay's house Claire, Young Joan, and her play the smuggled in Shostakovich symphony and enjoy each other's company. Kay feels for Elmer's pain and disgust over the exploitation of the murders. Bill swears her in as a clerk at the PD and she begins her own investigation on who the other murderer was. She determines Chuckie will have needed to live somewhere prior to his last home she finds it and the phone attached to it. After discovering it she has PC Bell supply the phone records from October of '39 to last year. When she gets them she discovers a name that she knew pop up. Finding out Chuckie had no car she looks up his friend's car and begins recanvassing the area around the klubhaus and notices, to the day of the week, there'd be no parking spots. Looking to the Traffic Bureau she discovers tickets for the woman, Andrea Lesnick's car. When Andrea arrives she tells her that she met Wendell Rice at a party at Otto's. He and Kapek were chauffeurs for some America Firsters, Archuleta was also present. Wendell and her were making out in the back of his limo but she said she didn't want to go further. While this was happening Chuckie saw something terrible. She goes on to say Rice was awful and harassed her for a year with letters and photos. When her dad sent her to the klubhaus to get a eugenics book he'd leant Rockwell the present Rice, Kapek, and Archuleta raped her. After that Chuckie and her began frequenting the klubhaus as a means to trap them and eventually they do. She tells them she wants to do it with them again and have Chuckie watch. When they arrive Chuckie and her kill them. Hearing all this, Kay thinks what would Hideo do and decides to let her be. Kay attends the acquittal party at Kwan's where everyone attends and watches as Jack praises it and the detectives who solved the klubhaus case without mentioning Dudley. When he lionizes Hideo he breaks down in tears. Ruth and Elmer's wedding is also celebrated. In the end, she thinks about how war-time L.A. is a time of History that she must take part in. The Black Dahlia Kay was the girlfriend of Lee Blanchard he was shacking with. They met when he saved her from Bobby De Witt who had been involved in the Citizens Bank robbery in 1939. She has a mysterious past and was abused by DeWitt in her time with him, physically and in other ways. It is alluded that he pimped her out. Her relationship with Lee is of an unusual nature since she lives in a fairly nice house while he's bankrolled her various degrees yet does not sleep with him. Upon meeting Bucky Bleichert she takes an immediate liking to him. The three of them, not long after Bucky and Lee become partners, become close, often traveling and socializing on a regular basis. As time progresses she admits to Bucky that she had had a crush on him when she saw him at boxing matches she went to see with Lee and Bobby. On one of the trips on New Year's 1947 she tells Bucky she loves him. Their relationship is so close that Bucky often uses the house as his. As the Dahlia case progresses and Lee becomes obsessed with it, even to the point of taking copies of reports, Kay becomes angered and threatens to leave until Bucky convinces her not too. When Bucky returns to L.A. from Mexico and tell Kay Lee was dead she reveals she suspected he'd be killed due to his connection with De Witt. She tells him that the Boulevard-Citizens bank robbery was a frame job. That she in fact had met Lee prior to the trial unlike previously reported. Despite initially not telling him where she was living when he found out he sought to frame De Witt and got three other people, all of them getting killed save Baxter Fitch who had been killed by Lee later. Her and Bucky marry soon after and have a normal existence until he again becomes obsessed with the case and imagines her as Betty. Putting an obvious strain on their marriage she leaves him after he spends a number of weeks in the company of Madeleine Sprague. It is later revealed she picked up money from the Spragues for Lee and knew who killed Betty Short. After leaving the teaching job she writes to Bucky to tell him she moved to Sioux Falls, South Dakota and later Cambridge. In her letter she also tells Bucky she is pregnant and wants to keep it and leaves it up to him on what to do. The last we see is Bucky landing in Boston ready to start his new life with her. Category:Girlfriends Category:Characters from The Black Dahlia Category:Characters from Perfidia